School Rewards Good Grades With an Earlier Lunch

Some schools think that their students are stupid. A struggling kid has a lot more on their mind than how far back they are in the lunch line:

A middle school is coming under fire for its incentive program, which rewards high-achieving students with a better spot in the lunch line, and forces less successful kids to eat last.

At Woodrow Wilson Middle School in Tampa, Fla., students who excel are rewarded with incentive cards, which give perks including a spot at the head of the line at lunch, according to Fox 13. Students without the cards, who have to wait at the end of the lunch line, are referred to at school as “no card kids,” and some parents are concerned that these kids are being unfairly treated. “The no-card kids either have a ‘C’ or a conduct issue,” Woodrow Wilson parent Sonya Brown told Fox 13. “They eat last.”

While Brown says she believes in incentivizing kids for academic achievement, she says rewards should be for things like free admission to sporting events or homework passes. And some of the school incentive cards do include those rewards, as well as computer game time, free admission to a school dance, and a free cookie from the school café. But giving better students preferred spots in the lunch line, she says, is going too far.

Alyssa Croker, an eighth grader at the school, says everyone knows why the “no-card kids” are at the back of the back of the line, and that those kids often only get 10 minutes to eat. “Everyone knows that they’re in line because they got a C,” she told Fox 13. “It’s not private at all. And it’s really embarrassing for them, I think.”